A Person Not a Cause

In today's offering from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers wrote an eye catching sentence.  "Paul was devoted to a Person and not to a cause."   It is such a subtle difference.  It is the kind of thing Satan is most capable of presenting to us and we buy into it without a thought.   As we remember our beginning days with Jesus, we know it started out with our love for Him.  We realized how He loved us and we responded with as much love as we could muster from the depth of our being.  We started out in love with a Person and not a cause.

 

But, the temptation mentioned by Chambers is ever there for us.  And it is easy to cross the line between being devoted to Jesus and being devoted to a cause.  I wonder about my own journey of faith.  Have there been times when I was devoted to my ministry instead of Jesus?  Have there been times when I have been devoted to the cause of building a new building or getting more people in the pews instead of being devoted to Jesus?  Have there been times when I got swept away by some great consuming and legitimate social cause to the point that it took the place of Jesus being the primary object of my devotion?  As I consider the questions, I find myself not really liking the answers.

It is not that any of us really ever set out to let our devotion shift from Jesus to something else, nor was it our intention in the beginning, but if your reality is like mine, there is plenty of room for confession.  "Lord, once again I can see that I have missed the mark.  What I did I did in the name of serving You, but I also realize that there were times when my acts of service replaced my devotion to You. Forgive me, Lord.  Grant me mercy according to Your love and not according to what I deserve.  Thank You, Lord, for Your faithful love and mercy.  In Your name I pray.  Amen."